The present invention generally relates to semiconductor device manufacturing, and more particularly to the formation and integration of a III-V semiconductor optoelectronic device and a silicon complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) device on a single chip.
As micro-electronic systems continue to scale down, the resultant electrical interconnect density would have to accommodate increased power dissipation, signal delay and cross-talk, while running at extremely high clock speeds. Current trends indicate that in less than a decade the power consumed by interconnects might become the limiting factor in determining the switching speeds in integrated circuits. To overcome these problems the integration of optical interconnects and systems alongside conventional Silicon (Si) based micro-electronic circuits would be a major step forward. Light based intra and inter-chip communication would diminish latency considerably and reduce power consumption by eliminating capacitive interconnect loss. Improved opto-electronic integration can also help increase the speed of transceiver circuits used in optical communication systems, thereby increasing the overall bandwidth.